


Liars in Love

by FortuneSurfer



Category: Justified
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Smut, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Bulletville, a minor instance of internalized homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 19:36:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20413177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortuneSurfer/pseuds/FortuneSurfer
Summary: Backlit by an old memory, the scene appears to Boyd nothing short of predestined and holy. There was another time like this back in the days of their shared youth.





	Liars in Love

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still beta-less and not fully functional, but I'm doing my best!
> 
> Title from And We Danced by The Hooters.
> 
> I love feedback and talking to fellow fans, and so, I would love to hear if you like or dislike the story I am sharing with you!

Somewhere outside the Crowder residence, in the misty morning, a dog is barking. The sound serves as the only indication of time passage to Boyd, who is engraving into his memory the lines of Raylan’s noble and peaceful profile, softened by the grey half-light, on a pillow next to his. Backlit by an old memory, the scene appears to Boyd nothing short of predestined and holy. There was another time like this back in the days of their shared youth.

Back then, more than twenty years ago, not even the idea of Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens and ex-soldier, ex-con, ex-Nazi, and ex-preacher Boyd Crowder had started to take shape. 

Raylan, who never wore hats except for the baseball cap of his school team during their matches, was taking a nap after a sleepless night of angry avoidance of his home that was caused by the bitter argument about Arlo with Helen. He was trusting Boyd, who, of course, was holding a book in his hands, to wake him up when they’d need to take off to the mine for their next shift.

Boyd didn’t read a single sentence then.

He spent the whole time studying the relaxed features he would remember with complicated emotions on the cold nights in his camp in Kuwait and later in Alderson. Because it was the time when Raylan trusted him to guard his sleep, and he was honored, and curious, and because they were just two kids on the same side – the side of not following into their fathers’ footsteps – who meant the world to each other without ever finding the courage to say it aloud. Not even when Raylan decided to leave.

Now, Raylan is sleeping beside him with his mouth slightly open. After some contemplation, Boyd declines this undoubtedly tempting invitation – he doesn’t want to take from Raylan what isn’t freely given to him. He wouldn’t dare. Instead, Boyd starts waking Raylan up by pressing small chaste kisses to his forehead and temples, feeling moved by something bigger than himself, not unlike when he was a believer. Except when he‘s honest with himself, this, this now is more important than any of all the many roles he has ever played in his life.

When Boyd moves away, Raylan is peering at him, his eyes lazily half-closed. His face wouldn’t betray anything other than sleepiness to a stranger, but Boyd can see that Raylan remembers one thing after another.

Remembers standing up for Boyd, who was losing in a fight with the friends of one of his deceased followers that were so upset they wouldn’t listen, when Raylan came into the bar looking for him. The feeling of camaraderie as they were getting the best of those guys, working side by side as partners. The talk they had afterwards.

Something that made him suggest to Boyd vacating and selling the Crowder house, splitting the earnings with Cousin Johnny for all his troubles, and to offer his manual help with the first part of the enterprise when Boyd reminded him of his gunshot wound.

And the discovery of younger Boyd’s belongings right where he left them all in his room before he joined the army, including his stacks of books and impressive and endlessly dear collection of CDs. How after a few songs, which they had used to listen to as teenagers and which simply served as the background for their nostalgia over drinks after a day of work, they rediscovered the absolute bliss of a music lover that Chicago’s _Hard To Say I’m Sorry_ is. And remembers asking for permission to stay overnight, after listening to the song together in reflective silence, when Boyd was indeed bracing himself to offer Raylan just that.

Remembers watching Boyd change the bandage he is still wearing because of the shootout in Bulletville, and inquiring, not in his usual cocky manner of a self–made lawman conceited of his own wit but with genuine interest and politeness: _how is the other scar?_ And remembers looking at the mark on the spot where his own bullet had entered Boyd’s chest months ago, presented to him, and being told that even though the scar has already faded Boyd still goes back to that night in his nightmares sometimes. And remembers replying, without necessity, out of some guilty fullness of his heart: “So do I.”

Remembers his palm being carefully put on Boyd’s chest by Boyd himself, and hearing: “It is still beating, ain’t it? Despite all the unfortunate occurrences in our long history. You know, Raylan, I only hope that my clock won’t strike before I see that rough patch of us end in a peaceful resolution.”

And that means that he also remembers replying, voice all tight: “You stopped putting yourself in trouble, didn’t ya? That opens new possibilities.” And how Boyd took his face in his palms to kiss him, swallowing hard and barely overcoming the fear that overwhelmed him almost immediately. And a soft, concerned and apologizing, “Raylan,” that followed after that. And how he did not give Boyd a chance to say anything else before proceeding to explore the unofficial and intimate side of the intercourse of the marshal service with the criminal class.

Raylan must remember all of it in a matter of seconds, and Boyd relives all the said events, too, not for the first time this morning, but now _together with Raylan_, before finally greeting him.

“Hello Raylan.” Boyd discovers a new, delicate sensibility in his own voice.

“What’s the time?”

Raylan sounds husky from sleep, and slightly higher than normal, and the fact that he doesn’t attempt to take control of his voice when he hears himself fills Boyd with warmth and something like gratitude.

“It’s Sunday. So, it scarcely matters, I suppose.”

“Uh, yeah.” 

They’re looking at each other: Boyd doesn’t attempt to touch Raylan, and Raylan doesn’t attempt to leave the bed or move away. In fact, he is lightly, mechanically stroking his chest with his fingers, reminding Boyd of how he never got enough motherly caresses in his life.

“You want me to get us some coffee, or breakfast?” Boyd offers after a pause. “Or even better something for the headache?”

“Actually,” Raylan frowns, as if unsure or suspicious, and confesses with caution, “I have none.”

Boyd is glad to hear that, as he sees it as an excuse to stay and address the situation. Which he does without hesitation.

“Raylan.”

Raylan raises his eyebrows to show Boyd that he is listening, and it gives Boyd all the confidence he needs. He has missed too many chances to say what he is fixing to say before.

“Now that certain inhibitions, which don’t need to be named, have been shaken off me by the latest transgression in our relationship,” Boyd begins and allows his words in turn to transgress into a gentle caress of Raylan’s wrist, and Raylan doesn’t show displeasure. But he doesn’t show anything else other than tense attentiveness either. “I, I hope that I can safely share with you a conclusion that moved me like an inspiration last night. Although, your usual stance being inaccessible to kind sentiment,” Raylan, smug and amused, grins at the reproaching remark and closes his eyes, “I suspect that it will most likely fail to surprise or please you. But nevertheless…”

Raylan stops him by raising his hand, and Boyd does his best to hide how intimately upset he is by the fact that he has to withdraw his affectionate touch.

“You realize I can’t tell ya what I’m thinking if you don’t jam your point somewhere between all those conjunctions and adverbs that are falling out of ya?” The corners of Raylan’s mouth and his eyebrows are slightly raised, communicating a kind of serene tolerating benevolence. “Or is this the intent of yours?”

It is only natural that Raylan demonstrates this astute knowledge of him, as he has been demonstrating since their reunion despite spending half his life as far away from Harlan as possible, but this time is different from any other time. Boyd doesn’t attempt to touch Raylan physically, but he very much does try to reach him with his words as he speaks his mind.

“You are beautiful, Raylan.”

Boyd hopes that a minute change in Raylan’s face isn’t all his wishful thinking.

“And, and I don’t mean to merely refer to your physical appearance. You’ve always been shamelessly aware of what God and Mother Nature have vested you with, and I don’t condemn it, but that would be me preaching to the choir. No, no, what I’m trying to encapsulate is your being on the whole. You in this life, my life…” Boyd stops, and the simile comes to his mind, simple and elegant, but most importantly truthful, “are a Bible verse among the paragraphs of a daily newspaper.”

He expects Raylan to laugh out loud, fearing it and hating it in advance because it is what Raylan always does to protect himself. If anything Raylan looks touched, like he has heard him. Then, there is a familiar smirk playing on Raylan’s lips, and he props himself up on his elbows and looks around, before turning back to Boyd. 

“Sorry, had to rearrange my immediate impressions. Let‘s assume that whatever I remember from the last night was a particularly vivid dream. That still leaves us with two empty glasses on the night stand,” Raylan throws up two fingers for emphasis, “our position in bed,” he points at the bed, as he says it, “and the fact that I believe that at least I am dressed proper to the occasion,” and Boyd laughs as Raylan’s wrist proceeds to gesture at them, actually _both_ only in underwear under the covers. After that, Raylan’s hand waves in uncertainty. “You’re welcome to correct me, Boyd, but with anybody else I would think we’ve already had sex. So, what’s all the courting about?”

Boyd grins, excited about the familiar energy starting to charge the space between them.

“Well, when you put it like this, it becomes rather obvious, Raylan.”

“Obvious how?”

It is like they are not having this conversation almost naked, almost touching, a breath away from something deliciously sinful when they are. Boyd explains:

“A man in a desert finds a cool spring, and it ain’t pure gratitude speaking in him when he praises it for being cool, sweet, and nourishing; for in this moment he principally adjures it to never dry out.”

“Boyd, we’ve already slept through the church service today. And even if we wouldn’t have, I believe in plain speak,” Raylan replies and is a liar by doing so, and Boyd laughs, delighted and eager to provoke, and proceeds to do just so, playfully posing resentment.

“Forgive me if I feel the need to make sure that we are on the same page. That what we did wadn’t a momentary lapse of control on your part. I know how irresistible this body can be. I can vividly recall how you didn’t seem to get enough of it just few hours ago!”

Next moment, Raylan pins him down to the bed. The briskness of the movement leaves Boyd disoriented for a second. Raylan is speaking into his ear, and his warm breath tickling Boyd’s skin and his suggestive intonations give Boyd the most pleasant kind of goosebumps: “You know what’s pretty great about this unforeseen turn of events, no matter how I look at it in my head? Now I have incontrovertible evidence that there is at least one way to make this tongue of yours useful.”

Boyd produces an “oh…” that is entranced to the marrow. He can feel his excitement distinctively exceeding the limits of just emotional one.

“In that case, all there’s left to say is,” Boyd slowly raises his hand to caress Raylan’s hair above the man’s ear and invites him, reveling in their proximity: “be my guest, Raylan, please, by all means.”

“You adjuring me, huh?” Raylan murmurs, and his voice is husky and much _lower_ than usual now; Boyd feels his hand firmly stroking his side.

“With all I’ve got, Raylan.”

There are sensations and experiences you know you’ll always enjoy in this life, no matter how many times you’ll encounter them – it can be a great song or a dish, and Boyd adds kissing Raylan to his list of those, putting it right on top, enjoying it very thoroughly. He is softly moaning because of how desired it is, and because of the unprecedented tenderness it holds, but most of all because Boyd is self-confident and quite sure that making out with him will have the same special meaning and value for Raylan as his favorite vanilla ice cream. That it already has it. Boyd can tell because he is listening to Raylan as closely as he has never done before, with all his being, indeed, while Raylan‘s actions as always speak for him.

As Boyd suspected, Raylan is someone who knows how to deeply enjoy sex and who predictably has had an enviable amount of experience, too. And even though Boyd cannot complain about the latter, as it enhances his benefit, there is a flash of something like regret for what never happened when Boyd doesn’t find the crooked canines that used to make the smile of teenager Raylan so uniquely attractive to him with his inquisitive tongue.

And perhaps Boyd missed it last night because he was too drunk on bourbon and pure, ecstatic joy of being accepted and openly longed for by Raylan, but now the way Raylan is reluctant to touch his sex doesn‘t pass unnoticed by him. He doesn’t show any aversion otherwise, neither to being pressed against firm and angular body nor to the short hair under his palm when he is nursing Boyd‘s head as they kiss. And as much as Boyd is dying to feel Raylan’s grip in his most intimate place, he figures that he’ll need to pave the way, and spits to take the matter in his own hands.

Boyd is instantly gratified for his courage by the most vulnerable and appreciative sound he has ever heard from Raylan.

And as new and breathtaking it is to be able to smell a ghost of Raylan’s deodorant on his skin and to taste him inside and outside, not to have that tantalizing distance between them, the part that gives Boyd the heartache to call Raylan by his name is how well-established and familiar it all feels.

It is them, it has always been them, when Boyd is looking for Raylan’s sensitive spots, paying close attention to his breath patterns and shivers, and when Raylan holds him close and tightly, but minding his wounded shoulder that still kinda hurts. The reverent gentleness in Raylan’s fingers, almost shyness, despite the heat of the moment and the raw want for each other they share.

Liars in love, finally honest with each other and themselves when the rocking movement of their hips sets in.


End file.
